Jennifer Cooper KC is a corporate lawyer and King's Counsel from New Zealand. [1]
Cooper attended the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, graduating with a BA and LLB (Hons). She attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and completed a BCL (first class) and MPhil in international relations. [2]
Cooper was admitted to the bar in 1995 and worked for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1998 to 2002, including holding the position of Second Secretary at the British Embassy in The Hague. In 2003 she returned to New Zealand. She works in company and securities law, fair trading and consumer finance law, competition law, and insolvency. [1] Cooper also serves on the council of the New Zealand Bar Association. [3] She was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 2017. [2] As of 2020, she is the president of Lawyers for Climate Action NZ. [4]
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer who is typically a senior trial lawyer. Technically appointed by the monarch of the country to be one of 'His [Her] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law', the position originated in England and Wales. Some Commonwealth countries have either abolished the position, or renamed it so as to remove monarchical connotations, for example, 'Senior counsel' or 'Senior Advocate'.
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to the bar". "The bar" is now used as a collective noun for barristers, but literally referred to the wooden barrier in old courtrooms, which separated the often crowded public area at the rear from the space near the judges reserved for those having business with the court. Barristers would sit or stand immediately behind it, facing the judge, and could use it as a table for their briefs.
The monarchy of New Zealand is the constitutional system of government in which a hereditary monarch is the sovereign and head of state of New Zealand. The current monarch, King Charles III, ascended the throne of New Zealand following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on 8 September 2022. The King's eldest son, William, Prince of Wales, is the heir apparent.
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